By Doug Stephens
Early this year the staff at Epicenter, a Stockholm based high-tech company, were given a choice; they could either be issued a standard employee ID card for access to the building and office equipment, or they could be injected with a tiny radio frequency identification device, placed just under the skin of their hand – otherwise known as a subcutaneous implant. Surprisingly, a number chose the chip, on the promise that with a wave of their hand they would be able to access the building, open doors, operate photocopiers and even pay for lunch in the company cafeteria. No ID cards to forget at home or passwords to remember.
In fact, the Epicenter case is hardly the first experiment of its kind. Going back as far as 2004, Barcelona nightclub owner Conrad Chase offered RFID chipping to his VIP clients enabling access to special lounges and payment capability.
To some, like author Liz McIntyre, stories like these represent the final steps in a march toward utter dystopia. McIntyre and other more extreme privacy advocates believe that the end-state of such technologies will be their mandatory institution by governments and other organizations, in their efforts to establish absolute surveillance states. Big Brother on steroids.
Others take a different view. They don’t see voluntary chipping as being a great deal more Orwellian than the level of surveillance we already live with today. After all, for decades, personal technologies and devices have been becoming both smaller and closer to our bodies. In developed countries, upwards of 75 percent of us now carry smartphones that are giving off a constant stream of data. This of course, is only being amplified with the advent of wearables like smart watches, Fitbits and other data gathering devices. Companies are already developing ingestible sensors that can monitor our vital signs and transmit them to pharmacists, doctors and other healthcare providers. Our credit cards are an open book of our buying behavior and product preferences. Our homes, cars and even our micro-chipped pets already serve as data points, communicating the details of our lives every time we adjust a connected thermostat or access an electronic toll highway. These and other devices are all a consequence of our relentless pursuit of convenience and connectedness and the steadily increasing amount of privacy we’re prepared to trade achieve them.
The chart below provides a partial glimpse of this growing vapor trail of data each of us is creating; figures which are likely to be dwarfed over the next decade of device proliferation.
Ironically, it’s this current state of privacy (or lack thereof) that is prompting people to consider more radical forms of identity verification, such as microchipping. One recent study of over 2000 U.S. and U.K. Millennials found that 68 percent believe their privacy will be at greater risk as we become more connected and because of that, 30 percent would consider digital chip implants to mitigate such risks.
I, for one, have already made peace with Apple using my fingerprint to unlock the home screen of my iPhone or make a purchase from iTunes. And I’m also perfectly comfortable providing an iris scan at the airport to speed past the long line at U.S. customs and immigration. And yes, I would even consider RFID chipping if it similarly promised to remove elements of friction from my life. From my perspective, the privacy ship sailed a long time ago and what matters more to me now is my ability to trade the currency we call privacy for significantly greater personal convenience.
While today the choice to be implanted with technology might strike many of us as radical, one also can’t help but ponder a world where our credit cards, drivers’ licenses and all other forms of identification disappear and simply become a part of us and are with us and available wherever we go. To never again worry about losing your wallet or forgetting your passport. To once and for all be able to leave your credit and other bankcards home when you head to the mall. To shed the last of our archaic twentieth century identification and payment conventions for a world of frictionless payment and authentication.
Regardless of which side of the chipping argument you find yourself on, what seems undeniable is that we are rapidly approaching a new frontier of personal technology. Computers have rapidly evolved from being things occupying rooms in buildings, to things on our desks, to devices in our hands and now fashion accessories worn on our wrists. Given this astonishing pace of innovation, it seems logical to wonder how long it will be before technology completely integrates into our bodies – what former Google executive Eric Schmidt famously referred to as augmented humanity. How long, in other words, before the next great computer interface is us?